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On Monday, we had the honor of meeting with Bill Gates to discuss MIX06, IE, DHTML, AJAX, Compatibility, Office 12, and also gain insight into where he surfs on the web :)

He also shares with us where and how software can make the world a better place.

This is the second time we've had Bill on C9 and he wants to do more interviews, covering a wide array of topics. How cool is that? He thinks Channel 9 is a "phenomenon". We're honored. Thank you, Bill!

WOW! CHARLES WOW! THIS Video showcases the awesomeness that is Channel 9!

Bill uses hotmail and Bill reads engadget! It's good to know that Bill actually gets to explore the same internet that everyone here at channel 9 has access too. That seems almost unreal. I guess the internet is the great equalizer.

I was intrested about Bill's comment on education and software, tailoring it towards the kids needs.

Now sure i'm not a mathmatician nor do i understand half the buttons on my calculator. but with software we can tailor a childs education. Does every child need to learn the same things? sure it creates a sense of equality (edited out equalness), is a
child in year 9 more better off than another child in year 9 where one knows trig and the other doesn't?

With software we can develop situations where child A wants to learn about the construction business but child B wants to learn about accounting, now does child B need to know pythag and does child A need to know about market rates (don't pick on me for this,
i think you all understand where i'm going).

I know since i learnt pythag about hmm 5 years ago i haven't used it since then. ok maybe in doing one of your "show us what you can program" exercises but i haven't ever used it since my math GCSE exam.

I was intrested about Bill's comment on education and software, tailoring it towards the kids needs.

Now sure i'm not a mathmatician nor do i understand half the buttons on my calculator. but with software we can tailor a childs education. Does every child need to learn the same things? sure it creates a sense of equality (edited out equalness), is a
child in year 9 more better off than another child in year 9 where one knows trig and the other doesn't?

With software we can develop situations where child A wants to learn about the construction business but child B wants to learn about accounting, now does child B need to know pythag and does child A need to know about market rates (don't pick on me for this,
i think you all understand where i'm going).

I know since i learnt pythag about hmm 5 years ago i haven't used it since then. ok maybe in doing one of your "show us what you can program" exercises but i haven't ever used it since my math GCSE exam.

We should not tailor all parts of a childs education. There are some basic things that each student should know. (I am comming at this from a degree in education) Each student should know a subset of history, a subset of math, some form of geography, civics,
etc.However there should be more oportunities for students to study things they want.

Bill commented about how the web still has alot of advances to go. For instance, shopping Amazon in a 3D style interface, walking down the aisles. Personally, I think the biggest obstruction to this goal is: When you've got hundreds of millions of titles,
how practical is this, really?

Why is everything "outstanding" now? It's obviously not good enough to be good, or even great any more. What will be the next level of goodness required when "outstanding" is no longer enough. I mean if three interesting, but not unexpected, answers in
a 17 minute interview are outstanding it makes you wonder what superlative will do in the future when 'outstanding' has been so thoroughly worn out.

That little niggle out of the way, it was the best interview I've seen with his Billness, so well done.

Thanks for the kudos. It was great to meet Bill (this was my first time). He will be on C9 again. That in and of itself tells you that this is a place worthy of his time, which means a lot given how little time he has... This is a reflection of the great
community we have here.

Bill commented about how the web still has alot of advances to go. For instance, shopping Amazon in a 3D style interface, walking down the aisles. Personally, I think the biggest obstruction to this goal is: When you've got hundreds of millions of titles,
how practical is this, really?

Did somebody say "Chrome"?

It would be practical if Amazon was willing to deploy some type of desktop application. On any given screen of Amazon, it usually only holds about ten titles (down the center of the screen). Now, if you expand that into a 3-D book aisle, it would be a matter
of piping the title information to the client app. I don't know if it would be wise to use a browser for that or not. If you think about an aisle full of books in a typical library, for instance, all you usually see on the spines of the books are titles. Pictures
only become an issue when you slide a title out and look at the cover. What would be nice is if you could walk down a virtual aisle of books and have Amazon populate the titles with a) things similar to what you have bought before, or b) random suggestions
that might lead you to new topics.

You know what? You've just given me a great idea for something I'll do here on Channel 9. Give me few days and I'll see if I can code something quickly to show you what I have in mind. I'm not familiar with DirectX at all, so the interface might be a little
poky until I figure out something better. I was going to do another "collage" thing, but I've got a much better idea.

This was special on several levels. It reminded me why he's someone I've always looked up to. It's pretty amazing how he can keep as close as he has to everything while running such a company. It's inspirational.

Great job. Definitely the most *real* interview I've seen with Bill. Glad to hear he'll be back.

It would be practical if Amazon was willing to deploy some type of desktop application. On any given screen of Amazon, it usually only holds about ten titles (down the center of the screen). Now, if you expand that into a 3-D book aisle, it would be a matter
of piping the title information to the client app. I don't know if it would be wise to use a browser for that or not. If you think about an aisle full of books in a typical library, for instance, all you usually see on the spines of the books are titles. Pictures
only become an issue when you slide a title out and look at the cover. What would be nice is if you could walk down a virtual aisle of books and have Amazon populate the titles with a) things similar to what you have bought before, or b) random suggestions
that might lead you to new topics.

You know what? You've just given me a great idea for something I'll do here on Channel 9. Give me few days and I'll see if I can code something quickly to show you what I have in mind. I'm not familiar with DirectX at all, so the interface might be a little
poky until I figure out something better. I was going to do another "collage" thing, but I've got a much better idea.

Great interview!There seems to be a lot of interest regarding what Bill Gates thinks of current technology and the future trends. Its great to hear about the future vision that Microsoft has from someone in the know, its nice break from all the speculation.

I hope to see more videos with guyes like Gates and Ballmer in the future.

Asking him whether he uses competitors' technology is a rather snarky and pointless thing to do. It seems little more than a passive-agressive way to imply his products are inferior. While I certainly hope he's able to take a critical eye to his company's
products, I'd have to think he believes enough in Microsoft and its employees that Microsoft technology gets preferrential treament. A more interesting question would be to ask where he feels Microsoft still needs to catch up to competitors--that way you can
get him to be self-critical without being rude about it.

Anyways, great interview. I agree with previous posters: it's great to see him less off guard and in less of a businessman mode. I'd love to hear more about his thoughts on education. The current system seems very much inadequate, yet it seems to be largely
ignored in favor of more sexy issues like Bush hunting terrorists or Cheney hunting the most dangerous game.

Asking him whether he uses competitors' technology is a rather snarky and pointless thing to do. It seems little more than a passive-agressive way to imply his products are inferior.

I quite disagree, and I really wonder where you get the passive agressive tactics from. Using ohter vendors products shows quite the opposite from a single minded view, like you nearly impose on Microsoft employees ( the interview subject or othervise). From
a programmers perspective ( as one of the stanford professors are knows of telling storys about Bill Gates hacking around in assembly at the uni) one uses the best tool for the job.
And he is also a Windows user like the rest of us, so its quite likely that he has used and perhaps are still using, other vendors products.

BryanF wrote:

A more interesting question would be to ask where he feels Microsoft still needs to catch up to competitors...

.

Why should that be more intersting ?? Dont you think that question answers itself?? Competition in the software industry is firece and it allways will be.

WOW! CHARLES WOW! THIS Video showcases the awesomeness that is Channel 9!

Bill uses hotmail and Bill reads engadget! It's good to know that Bill actually gets to explore the same internet that everyone here at channel 9 has access too. That seems almost unreal. I guess the internet is the great equalizer.

We agree that it's unhealthy to have a single-minded view that obscures awareness of competing technologies. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Rather what I take issue with is the way the question is asked; it strikes me as smug. If Gates has any sort of business
acumen, I'm sure he's taken the time to seriously evaluate alternatives. The fact that he's also a geek implies that he'd do so even if only for the sake of curiousity. I'd love to know his thoughts, but there are more constructive ways to ask. Gates is an
interesting man with little slack time to grant these kinds of opportunities, and so I'd rather questions evoke something genuinely thoughtful than put him on the defensive.

How many times can one man say awesome? Just because he pays your wage, don't suck his bottom!

One quick question - how many times have you interviewed the richest man in the world who happens to be the CEO of your quite large company?

There is speaking in front of a large crowd of professionals,...and then there's speaking to a brillian billionare (with a camera fixed on both of you).

Great job, Charles and thanks for the very down-to-earth type of interview. And to think, the marketing lingo was close to nil! No value proposition BS or we totally kill our competitors' products hype.

I really have a lot of respect for this man who doesn't waste his valuable time watching TV, who is accountable with respect to his schedule, and spends time with his family. And who still reads the newspaper...

Bill Gates has a pretty eyes, but it's pity he wear eyeglasses, I have one question if I got a chance to question Bill Gates, Why Bill Gates not take eyeglassess off, and try some advanced laser operations to cure his short sight? I don't think he has
a problem on money for pay the costly operation, maybe there are some story I don't know, then what about the contact lenses?

i wear eyeglasses. im not really interested in laser eye surgery, because my vision has stopped deteriorating, i don't mind wearing glasses (for many reasons i like it), and there are risks even if they are minimal with surgery

btw, bill gates should really improve his posture i mean its one thing not to have perfect posture but his is really bad

I have an idea I would like to submit for IE 7. The concept is like comparing the hunt and peck method of typing vs. using all of your fingers to type. Office 12 sounds very cool, I would like to see an extra utility in there for file sharing and video
sharing management. Currently I run a video website, and I can tell the larger companies are doing their research on these types of sites based on the IP trails. It is just a matter of time until someone creates that killer app for video, I agree with Bill
on that.

I would like to see windows media with clear embedded interface. People are embedding WMF into web pages, it would be easy to make a clear window skin to have more of a Macromedia Flash feel. I would like to see MS come up with software to compete with Photoshop,
Flash, and Dreamweaver. I think they could be further simplified to expand the market beyond tech types.

Another request... Could you also make transcripts available for your videos online.

Edit: finally last question i would ask, can i have a million dollars?

I don't think anyone is going to give you a million dollars, but here are some things you can learn from his everyday example. Here are some observances.

* Bill Gates took a big risk to start the company, why not take a big risk and start a software company, or buy a shirt business.

* If someone gave someone else a million dollars, they would probably not have the character to handle that amount of money, nor would they make any profit from it. The best thing about becoming a millionaire is not the money, but the person you can become
as you get to that point. In fact, giving someone a million dollars will make them even lazier then they already are now.

* Notice his time management skills. He doesn't waste his waste time. Don't waste energy on looking for something for nothing, spend it on starting your own company or working to save capital for your own company. Turn off the TV and read some self help
books.

* Even though Bill G. is has money now, he doesn't stop building the business, this come from his character being built over the years from the time he has spent on building the company. That is why Micrsoft is still alive and thriving today.

The mindset of always looking for a handout is a cancer that corrupts the U.S.. People are so creative to find lawsuits today, and other "get rich quick" scams. If only they used that creativity to add to our society instead of taking from it.

I'd like to send a little overall feedback to bill about how I'm feeling these days, and where we're all headed. Being his first Channel 9 interview, I figure he'll be reading the comments like the rest of us. (And a nice interview too). Okay, Microsoft
has been quite rightly been putting a significant focus on the visual appeal of their operating system and products this round. The continued commitment to usability/HCI as seen in Office 12 is outstanding. I also appreciate all the work that has gone into
security, such as with full hard drive encryption and lowered-rights mode. But Microsoft has certainly held back. There has been no big push towards encrypted email and instant messaging. Although I don't doubt this has more to do with Microsoft's position
next to the US government. But hopefully MS is leaving the door open for products like Skype to bring added privacy to the masses. It'd be hard for me to swallow a monopoly on instant messaging that shuts the door on end-to-end encryption.

Second, I have a huge personal interest in machine learning and social networking. I'm finishing up my undergrad in cpsc and am hoping to find a place among the ranks at Microsoft in Mountain View. I see amazing strides being made in the academic world by applying
machine learning in the real world. The darpa challenge is one obvious example. Reading through post mortems is filled with hopes of extending their work towards self-navigating vehicles and the safety/reliability it would bring. A friend of mine died in a
car accident a little over a month back which drove home the point of just how badly we need machines to be able to work in the real world. Driving is perhaps the single biggest danger in our 1st world nations. Consider also how integrating small smart shuttles
into public transit systems could absolutely revolutionize public transportation, especially in rural cities that make traditional bussing systems slow and impractical. Basically, a greater understanding of this field is needed throughout computer science.

And to people who are criticizing the 3D amazon comment of bill's. The virtual online 3D amazon book store idea has been floating for quite some time, and similar ideas such as virtual art galleries. Those kinds of examples started showing up right from the
get go with VRML a decade ago. My take is that it's almost completely without merit. I don't want a static 3D world. It simply doesn't offer me any benefit beyond eye candy. It really struck home with me when I was trying to create a more visually way of viewing
google image search results using PCA / MDS algorithms. It works fine where you can build an interface where images with similar features would be closer together. You can pull features like like colour composition or tagged info like people or dates. Then
much with what features are important in real time and have the images slide around to match. But where that's really fun, it's hard to really make major gains out of it. Surprisingly, a raw page of thumbnails with descriptions is actually pretty information
rich. You can skim a page and move on without requiring much aid. Plus, the results after a few pages are typically garbage for all but the most general searches.

Anyways, thanks again Bill. Keep up the good work at MS, donations to medical and 3rd world, advocacy, commentary, etc. We all like to see that happen. And hey, I'd like to see microsoft get into medical software at some point. I'd like to get into bioinformatics
at some point which seems to limit my options with regards to Microsoft. MS is such a hotbed of talent that I feel could be put to so many kinds of good beyond consumer products.

Try to bring Bill Gates more often in Channel 9 it's importnat to discuss more about teachnology of the microsoft and Software. Again Tnx channle9 for bringing to us the king of teachnology my respectful Gates

If anyone cares about the rules of emailing Bill Gates, I have emailed him 10 times and figured out what gets in and what does not. First off, your email address should have a verifiable name, no aliases. It should not contain attachments. It should not
have links in it to anything to do with Microsoft's software. Do not mention his company's software because the filters consider that soliciting feature requests or feedback. You are twice as likely to go through with a Hotmail account than any other service.
If you have a Gmail account, every time you are denied, you will be notified. If you have a hotmail account, the only time you are notified is when you mention a name of any Microsoft product. The first 8 times I emailed him, I failed to get a response.
The ninth time, I got Keith Loeber of Microsoft Learning. The tenth time, I am still waiting to see what happens, since it typically takes 3-5 days for anything to come back from the Microsoft servers. [C] I had to turn off my alias and use my real name
in order for it to get through the first filter. I bet Gates does not even check his Junk Email folder in Outlook since it is a pain to go through it. If he did, many people who email him would get a response. But, he probably does not do that.... Just
some rules for people to know if they want to try to email Bill Gates....[A]

I think Bill is being a little hard on himself when he mentions the amount of time it has taken between releases.

I think some of the lessons learned during the highs and lows of the dot com era have led many of us to believe that a conservative approach is frequently more prudent. Especially considering the extent applications have infiltrated the enterprise and mesh
with our personal lives.

I think there is still a little kid in many of us who still want the latest greatest toys available yesterday. However, the hybrid combination of well thought out products and robust feature rich collaborative and useable products have become a standard
for Microsoft.

I think Mr.Gates should be proud of the contributions Microsoft has made to society and should feel satisfied seeing many of his predictions made in “The Road Ahead” continue to come to fruition.

Hey, Sitting down with Bill Gates to share his thoughts on staying sane and managing life is an incredible perk of this day and age. Thank you. Microsoft Corporation is exactly where the brilliant creative innovators like Rob Wheeldon and Bill Gates should be.

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